Lauren M. Weiss (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa)

With knowledge of thousands of exoplanet systems from the NASA Kepler Mission, we are closer than ever to understanding how planets form. Patterns in exoplanet populations, compositions, and planetary system architectures are already revealing the most common outcomes of planet formation. I will discuss how I use exoplanet systems as laboratories to test theories of planet formation. My work ranges from characterizing broad patterns across many planetary systems to studying individual systems through their transits, transit timing variations, and radial velocities. In the next ten years, we will measure exoplanet multiplicities, orbital periods, masses, radii, eccentricities, inclinations, obliquities, dynamical interactions, atmospheric compositions, and host star properties using a combination of ground-based and space telescopes. These detailed observations of our exoplanet laboratories will allow us to place the solar system in its galactic context.